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“Would You Mind Walking this Way?” is the latest video produced by Art and Zen Today and the One Mind Artist Coalition. It speaks to the notion of being on what is variously referred to as an “inner journey”, a “trip” or a “Path”. What I tried to convey in this video is that the Path entails being in the moment while on the journey, no matter where it takes us. The idea is to let go of concerns of where we are going or when we are going to get there and become fully immersed in the journey itself. To do this we must let go of excessive conceptualization and allow the shift away from left brain processes that I spoke of in the previous post (Music, Trance and Mindfulness ). Although most of us have had experiences involving this type of shift, it is often not a comfortable one because it may feel that our sense of being in control,( which is the basis of our sense of self), is being lost (see previous blog post). To find earlier posts on “left-brain process” or other concepts, use as key words in the search engine of this site at the top of the page.

On the other hand, when we allow such experiences to happen, it can often be quite liberating; liberating in the sense that one learns that there are other ways of being that are free of stress and strife. I remember my father, who one health professional described as a “Type Triple A Personality”, telling me about having such an experience while on vacation in Puerto Rico. He found that, even far away from his practice (he was an M.D), he could not stop thinking about his work. According to him, after several days of not being able to relax, my mother gave him a pencil and pad and told him to go draw something on the beach. This, he told me, finally allowed him to “let go” of his thoughts, be more fully present and he enjoyed the remainder of his vacation. As he told me this story, it was clear from his voice and the tears in his eyes that this had been a major “realization” in his life.

The roots of the word “vacation” are variously described as “free of occupation” and “to be empty”. In my Dad’s case he was “preoccupied” with thoughts about his work and unable to experience his moments on the beach and elsewhere in Puerto Rico by being fully there. Ideally, the novelty of the places we visit on vacation allow us to become fully present and this can only happen by “forgetting” our left-brain/self-sustaining thoughts. This is why, I think, that Dogen famously wrote that “to study the Buddha Way is to forget the self” and why Csikszentimihali said that “flow experiences” happen when we forget the “conceptual self, but not what Langer calls the “experiencing self”.

In Zen, sitting mediation is the key practice in studying the Buddha Way; the way of reality-i.e. being with whatever is happening in your life rather than what you want to be happening. Zazen may be thought of as a practice time where one goes on a brief vacation under conditions that facilitate practicing the difficult task of “vacating” or “emptying”. But, Zen, along with other Spiritual disciplines also emphasize the need to eventually extend this practice into all aspects of life. One way this has been emphasized in Zen is by incorporating “kinhin” or “walking meditation” into the routines of those practicing sitting meditation. When correctly practicing walking meditation one is fully absorbed in the waking process with no thought of going anywhere. When you watch the video look for instances of such mindful walking; the title of the video alludes to such mindfulness. The music that accompanies this video is a remix of the song “Caravan”, which is a jazz standard composed by Juan Tizol and first performed by Duke Ellington in 1936. See the video below.

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Over the past month I received numerous announcements that artists were invited to submit work for consideration by the curators of the 2014 International Artexpo in Spain. I usually ignore such calls for submissions but the description of the theme for this year’s exhibit captured my interest: Borderland – Hidden Identities & Forbidden Desires

The reason my interest was piqued is that this was the first exhibit where I felt my video “Modern Mud Men” might fit in. Apparently the curators felt that way also because the video was accepted to be shown. The exhibit will be held in Zaragoza (Spain) at Club Nàutico De Zaragoza, from the 05 to the 13 of April 2014, and in Almeria (Spain), at MECA Mediterráneo Centro Artístico, during the 11 and the 26 of April 2014 (video screening only). Since I realize that most of my readers have probably already booked their annual trips to Europe for this year, I made arrangements for you to see “Modern Mud Men” free on this site.

Mud Men of New Guinea

The “Modern Mud Men” video came about after I read a review of a video that someone made about the Mud Men of New Guinea (see picture above). I set out to try to find this video on the internet but never found it. What I did find instead are the self-recorded video clips that make up “Modern Mud Men”. This video is a composite of mostly self-recorded experiences of men enjoying the sensual/auto-erotic pleasures of wallowing in mud.It provides a rare look at men engaging in an activity that seemly allows them self-indulgent pleasures usually reserved for females. Although I found videos of women wallowing in mud on the internet, they were never alone and do not display the earnestness of the men shown in these clips. In most cases the enjoyment of mud is carried out away from the public’s eye and yet the videos were made public.The original music that accompanies the video was inspired by the strangeness and yet naturalness and beauty of this kind of play. Click on link below:

This post starts off with a visual and auditory experience for you that will work best if I don’t provide any “up front” information.Below you will see a link to a short video that will provide that experience.It is best if you watch the video before reading on.

Now that you’ve watched the video, please take a moment to briefly let James, the artist, know what you experienced.It would be helpful for him to know what you thought or felt at various points in the video.You can provide this feedback by clicking on the bubble at the right of the picture at the top of the post.If you want your comment to remain anonymous, just write in “anonymous” when prompted for a name.

Below is an interview with James which I think you will find interesting.My intention was to find out more about how this particular artistic experience came about.

A&Z TODAY: Most of your current music, music videos, and of course your visual device, “The Adagio”,seem to tap into a sort of slow motion in conjunction with music.How did you get started along this line of thinking?

James: I can remember the circumstances pretty vividly.It was a while ago, probably around 1966 or 1967 when I was a music student at Boston University.One evening, a weekend night I’m pretty sure since I had nothing pending the next day, I was chilling out at my apartment with some friends, listening to jazz, mainly Miles Davis.One of my friends shared some weed, and I probably had had a few beers by that point in the evening.I think it is pretty common when “high”, either on just life or with the assistance of some mind-altering substance, one gets into a state of mind where he/she is somewhat removed from oneself; almost like you become an “observer” observing oneself.

Miles was playing “Solea” from his “Sketches of Spain” album.I was very much in the “observer” state of mind at the time, and looked down to notice my hand was moving very slowly to the music, kind of in an up and down fashion along with the characteristic“arcs” that Miles plays during his solos. ( If you listen carefully to this piece in particular, you will notice that he hits high points, then his trumpet lines slowly descend to a low point.He then begins to build the tension, and overall pitch, back up, etc. etc. )My hand was following that, the up and down motion, but also moving very slowly in a smooth arc, not at all as part of any of the rhythmic elements of the piece.I was hearing/feeling some other motion in the music that no one was talking about.It was not anything you could consider “rhythmic”.

Fortunately, I hadn’t partied too hearty that night, and the next day I remembered the evening’s experience pretty vividly.I thought about it off and on for the next several years, and in 1969 I built the first prototype of “The Adagio”.It was pretty crude, but it worked, and was my first attempt to capture what I had experienced, and something I could work with in more detail.

A&Z TODAY: In a previous A&Z article, you discussed some of the thinking that led to the actual building of the Adagio.

Yes, I won’t repeat that here again.Anyone interested can go HERE to read the article in your blog.I did go into some detail at that time about how and why I came up with using the sine curve to measure the up and down motion.Using a slowly rotating cylinder, that was speed adjustable from 0 rpm up to about 3 rpm allowed me to create a slow moving, continuously flowing arc of light across the viewer’s vision.

A&Z TODAY: At one point, you used Adagio in a biofeedback experiment.How did that evolve?

After I built the first Adagio, I spent a lot of my free time watching it while listening to music.I also began to notice certain patterns that might someday be of interest to music theorists.From working with Adagio and music over the years, several patterns have emerged:

1. Most music falls within several rotation speeds: roughly 1 rpm, and 1 rev. every 90 seconds. Some outliers do occur, for example Gregorian Chant which moves incredibly slow, like 1 rev every 3 minutes, and Bartok’s piece for Celeste, Orchestra – adagio movement, also crawls along at a barely perceptible pace.

2.Most music, esp. classical such as Mozart and Bach, has cadences every ¼ rotation. In other words, 8 or 16 measures of music usually equal ¼ rotations of the cylinder, or on the sine curve, at the 90, 180, 270, and 360/0 degree marks.You can get an idea of this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrnhYnNqjzU , along with a Mozart piece. Note that the Adagio is at 180 degrees rotation when the piece cadences at around 47 seconds. Coincidence? Maybe, but then maybe not.

3. Much good music (including Bach, Bartok, and oddly, Gil Evans – esp. Sketches of Spain with Miles Davis), follow the arch of the curve. I.e., it builds up during the first ¼ rotation, then releases down to ¾ rotation, etc. I have used these theories in my own compositions. This video you included at the start of this article, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isvcRjRauSU uses an ambient piece I composed that was constructed specifically for use with the Adagio. The rising and falling ball/”moon” follows the sine curve across the screen, with a cylinder rotation speed of 1 rev/90 seconds. Hopefully you get a sense that the music is moving “upwards”, during the upward cycle of the Adagio, then “downwards”, etc. That’s what I intended anyway.

If you work with the Adagio long enough, it can affect you psychologically. You almost feel a little “stoned”. I think it slows your sense of time down, and you begin to notice things that perhaps you never noticed before. Of course the study talks about the fact that it activates the right hemisphere, etc. And so that kind of ties in with the altered-state one gets from viewing the Adagio over a period of time.

Of course the sensation of an altered-state is what eventually led to the biofeedback study.I definitely noticed a change in how I was feeling and seeing things and I had several of my friends try it as well.They also remarked on a change in their perceptions, a sense of “time slowed down”.

In 1978 I was taking a few courses at Nova University in Florida, and also teaching some of the students there computer skills.One of the doctoral students, a friend of mine, Joyce Keen, became interested in using the Adagio as part of a left brain/right brain activation experiment she was proposing.She was able to get some heavy hitters of the time, such as Dr. Joe Kamiya, to be on the dissertation committee.Anyway, the experiment produced some very strong and statistically conclusive results; namely, that the Adagio, and music, reduced stress in the experimental subjects.The general conclusion is that the Adagio and music activated the right hemisphere, thus allowing the left hemisphere, which is the side of the brain that brings our “fight/flight” response back under control, to concentrate on that task.In other words, while the right brain was engaged, the left brain had available “down time” so that it could more efficiently address the stressors that were being administered to the subjects.A few weeks after the initial sessions, Joyce repeated just one session.Evidently the effect did not seem to diminish over time, as the experimental group still recovered significantly faster than the control group.

Some interesting non-scientific results also occurred.For example, one student swore she was being levitated in her chair while watching the Adagio.Another student that suffered from insomnia, said he had started sleeping normally again.

A&Z TODAY: The study was done a while ago, in 1978.What has transpired since?

Well, for better or worse a something called “life” got in the way of my doing much else with it since that time.I got off on a number of tangents, making a living, etc., so I really haven’t done much with it until recently.I know this seems like a stretch, but I have become very interested in politics over the last 5-10 years, and am very concerned about the direction the country, and the world is taking.The human race faces at best an uncertain future, and, according to the majority of climate scientists, quite possibly extinction.What seems to be lacking most in our business leaders and politicians is a little thing called “empathy”.Nobody seems to care about anyone else not within their immediate family or sphere of influence, much less the fate of future generations.As long as they are OK, as long as they are comfortable,who cares about anyone else?That seems to be the current trend, the current way of thinking, especially here in the United States.

Empathy emanates from the right brain.It is a right brain attribute.Well, you can probably guess where this is going.In short, what the world needs most is a little right brain activation, a little more right brain thinking.What was that popular song “What the world needs now is love sweet love”?– aBurt Bacharach song from the mid-1960s if I recall.Unfortunately it is truer now than ever.

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This post starts off with a short video I took several weeks ago at the Coyote Bar and Grill in Carlsbad, which is where my wife and like to go dancing. On this night, one of my favorite singers (Valerie Pierce) was singing one of my favorite tunes (“This is How We Do It”) with one of my favorite local bands (SmokeStaxx). Before I get into my usual pontification, I’d suggest that you watch the video now.Unfortunately, I was not quick enough to capture the whole song, but I got the best part.

I had talked briefly with Valerie after she had performed this rap at an earlier date.I asked whether she would be OK with me recording her the next time they did this tune and she said “yes”. I also asked her what her state of mind was while she was performing that night.Her answer was ” I don’t know where I went”. (Valerie was recently named “#1 Ranking New Jazz Artist in the Hollywood Talent Quest”. See more at ValeriePierce.com)

The idea of being somewhere else (or not being one’s self) is common among musicians when trying to describe their state of mind while improvising.The same language is common among those witnessing such performances (e.g. “like he’s gone, man”or “He’s possessed”).(see Improvization in Jazz and Zen).I would suggest that such performances are good examples of what Dr.Mihaly Csikszentimaihalyi calls the “flow experience” where the experiencer“forgets the conceptual self” and loses a sense of time.(See To Know Flow or No Flow?).The idea of being “far out” was also the topic of an earlier blog “The thin line between”and “aliens”

While it is common to refer to such performancer as not being here, in other posts (for instance“The Artist Is Present”, I also suggest that the performer is totally here in the present in the moment.The language we use to describe and try to understand these kinds of experiences could, at first blush, be seen as contradictory.Is the performer “gone” or is she “totally here in the present moment?Is the performer “far out” or “present”. The problem lies in trying to describe human experiences that lie outside the commonplace or “normal”These kinds of experiences are simply not easy to describe in words because they involve a dropping away of the usual thought processes (predominately “left brain” processes) that we use for making distinctions and understanding what is happening.As I have shown before, these are the very kinds of experiences that spawn creativity (See “Sudden Insight and Creativity“)

As I look at Valerie in this video, I see both someone who is “gone” and “fully present”.She is gone in the sense that she is not exactly her usual self, but she is present in that she is responding immediately and quickly to what is going on around her; making split-second decisions that can only occur when one is fully focused in the present moment.

I was talking with my brother recently about all of this and he said that when he is improvising (he is a jazz saxaphonist) the audience can tell when he is in the state of being Gone/Present and they let him know by their response.When someone is in this state (whether a performer or not) they have a “Presence”. (see Performer-Audience Communication” ).How is this “presence” communicated?I would suggest that it is conveyed as much visually as through sound.I have played drums while my brother is improvising and I can always tell when he is “into it”; it is conveyed by facial expressions and various other forms of body language (try watching the video of Valerie again, with your volume turned down).

Monk and Diz

There is reason to believe that this is true of performers in the relatively subdued and staid classical music. I just read about some surprising research that seems consistent with this idea.Chia-Jung Tsay is both a classical pianist and a psychologist who conducted a study where she showed both amateur and professional musicians clips from classical-music competitions. She asked her volunteers to guess the winners.But, some saw videos with recording, some listed only to audio and others watched silent videos.What she found is that it was only in the silent videos, the videos without any sound, that participants were best able to identify the actual winners.

My interpretation of Tsay’s results is that the “presence” of the winners was largely conveyed visually.Interestingly, Ellen Langer’s studies on creativity and mindfulness also suggest that “presence” may be conveyed from artist to viewer even when the artist is not physically present.In a series of experiments where volunteers were either encouraged to create art pieces mindfully or allowed to create with no intervention, she found that artist who created more mindfully were judged to be more “authentic or charismatic based on viewers perceptions of their work.Now “presence” is one of those words that are difficult to define but I think that “authenticity’ and “charisma” are elements of what we generally mean when using the term.

What Langer calls the “authenticity” and “charisma”, (which can be seen as part of “presence”) of painters can be conveyed to viewers through what they see on the canvas.Generally, I would say, we are drawn to art of all types when it conveys the presence of the artist, even if the artist is not physically present.

In the most general sense “presence” means that others are impressed by a person”s appearance and manner.But, as I discussed above, the term often implies the existence of something or someone not physically present.Different people will have different interpretations of the “something” or “someone” but I think the quote from Wikihow below best sums up my position:

“In some spiritual circles, presence and spirit are one in the same. Meditation, contemplation, dance, chant, all seek to connect with something deeper. Presence is the result of getting in contact with your deeper self.”

Even the nature of “your deeper self” can be debated but I would suggest that this is what is often referred to in the Zen literature as “realizing one’s Buddha nature”.That is, it is in our nature to be “present/awake/alive” but for most people, this must be realized through practice. The term “Buddha nature” is one of those that can be difficult to grasp but I think that author William Westney may provide some insight into it’s meaning.

Westney, author of “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self” suggests that if you watch 3 year olds engaging with music you get a sense of the inherent joy that can be evoked from playing and listening to music. Artists with “presence”, I would suggest, allow the enthusiasm and involvement of the child to shine through their performances. To use Westney’s worlds: ..”there is total involvement, every fiber, sinew and nerve-ending alter to the musical impulse…” (pg. 17). This is what I see when watching the video of Valerie.

Westney suggests that this inherent joy, in most cases, is sufficated by lessons and other adult demands until most of us forget or deny it and we become convinced that we do not have the talent to either perform or fully listen music (see “Ellen Langer on “The Talent Myth).

Westney goes on to say:

“The energized, fluid creativity of play, for example is a childhood treasure that is often lost later. People happily forget themselves when they are absorbed in play, and at the same time they are acutely aware” (p. 22). In other words they are simultaneously “there” and “here”. Dale Wright’s deconstruction of the Buddhist Six Perfections, designed to provide students with the “goals” of practice suggests that a sense of joy is a key element of spiritual practice as well. It makes sense to me that this joy would develop as one breaks through the conditioning that has stiffled the joyousness of childhood. It seems to me that what Westney is describing as the three year old’s natural inclination to play and musicality is very similar to “Buddha nature” in that both are inherent and both usually need to be re-discovered or realized in later life.

From all accounts it appears that the historic Buddha, after years of spiritual practice, had a presence that others could acknowledge and were drawn to.At the same time I would guess that had Buddha been around during the early days of jazz, he would certainly have been seen as “real gone”.The Heart Sutra, seen as one of the most important of Buddha’s teachings ends withthe phrases “gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha” which is translated as “ gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond“.Gone, as gone beyond ordinary egjo-based consciousness and suffering.From what I can tell, Buddha conveyed his “goneness” to those he met but was also very much present; present enough to effectively convey his teaching, organize an order of monks to succeed him and become engaged in civil society.According to the Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, “The Buddha had gone beyond all worldly affairs, but still gave advice on good government” (http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/whatbudbeliev/229.htm)

So, the historic Buddha was gone but not gone.Neither “here” or “there”.Interestingly Buddha uses terms similar to this in the following quote attributed to him:

When for you there is only the seen in the seen, only the heard in the heard, only the sensed in the sensed, only the cognized in the cognized, then you will not be reckoned by it. When you are not reckoned by it, you will not be in it. When you are not in it, you will be neither “here” nor “there” nor between the two.

This, just this, is the end of suffering.

Buddha Gautama (563-483 BC)

When I am dancing to a great band like Smokestaxx or watching/listening to a great performer like Valerie Pierce, I am often temporarily “neither here nor there” and I get at least a taste of what it might be like to realize my “Buddha Nature”. Does Booty Shaking = Buddha Nature ? I’m not sure but I intend to keep up my booty shaking practice and I’ll let you know when I find out.

The post titled “The Evolution of Adagio: A Therapeutic Motion Machine” by guest blogger James Wilson, has quickly become the most viewed on Art and Zen Today during the past 90 days.A comment on that article from Charlie from Mass. raised some interesting questions about validity of some of the theoretical foundations used by James in the evolution of his “machine”. Specifically, the validity of the “golden mean” or “golden ratio” was questioned.(Click here to read “The Evolution of Adagio: A therapeutic Motion Machine.”)

THE GOLDEN GINGERBREAD BOY

This got me thinking about the place of “truth” and “faith” in the artistic and spiritualsystems we use to guide our practices.James later penned a response to Charlie’s comment but it could not be posted because I have placed a time limit on comments in order to cut down on the “robo-spam” sent to the blogsite.

So today’s post consists of: 1) Charlie’s comment on “The Evolution of Adagio”; 2) James’ response; 3) some additional material intended to help the reader follow along, and finally; 4) some comments by me on how I see the discussion relating to the practices of art and Zen.Because this post consists of ideas expressed by several different people, I have physically separated each authors contributions to make it easier to follow.I’d like to thank Charlie and James for inspiring me to sit down and think about all of this.

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First is the comment by Charles that was published soon after the post on Adagio by appeared in Art and Zen Today. In his post, James had written about the use of the “golden ratio” in the development of his invention.

Charles wrote:

“The golden ratio is like religion—it’s an old theory which doesn’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. I googled “skeptic ‘golden ratio” and came up with a nice quote from a comment by Phil in Australia:

“Beauty like love is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Numbers can’t explain it.”

Comment by Phil, Sydney Australia, from the following link:

The comment by Phil, referred to above by Charles, was in response to an article titled “The Golden Ratio” published on the website Skeptoid:Critical analysis of Pop Phenomena .Below is one paragraph from the original article that prompted Phil’s comment.I include it here to help put Phil’s comment into some context.

φ, the golden ratio, and the Fibonacci series are mathematically interesting and do have natural manifestations. That doesn’t mean everything, or even anything else, is based on them. The popularity and “big name” of the “divine proportion” has been the real driver of its pseudoscientific assignment to just about anything and everything. Those whose brains’ pattern-matching software is in overdrive have probably heard of the golden ratio, and so it’s the one they think of whenever they see a rectangle, or a great work of art (like the Mona Lisa, which is not based on the golden ratio), or patterns in the stock market (which don’t exist at all, let alone at the golden ratio), or in the numerology of the Bible (unless any other number is allowed to be considered just as significant). Not every claim about the golden ratio is the result of hyperactive pattern matching, but most are. At a minimum, such a claim is always a good tipoff that you should be skeptical.

The entire article and comments, including the one referenced by Charlie, can be seen at:

In this section, I have copied James’ response to the comment made by Charlie.This was not previously published on Art and Zen Today.

Charlie,

I agree that discussions around the “Golden Mean” can sometimes lapse into a matter of “faith”. From what I can tell, science has neither proven anything about it (except it has some pretty amazing mathematical properties), but it hasn’t really dis-proven anything either.

The way I think of it, and use it, is that when starting a creative project, like a piece of music or painting, it is helpful to the composer or artist or designer to create some kind of “limits”; otherwise the possibilities are infinite and can result in artistic paralysis. Take 12 tone compositions for example. Here’s a definition:

Twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition devised by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note[3] through the use of tone rows, an ordering of the 12 pitches. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-20th century.

To me, Twelve-tone is basically a lot of BS, and it really doesn’t “avoid being in a key”, which was its primary purpose in life. However, it did get a lot of people to write a lot of music (some good, some not) simply because it gave them a “system” to work within. I.e., it got them to initiate the creative process!

And, if nothing else, this is the magic of using the Golden Means, or any other system for that matter, particularly in the arts, where, as I said above, the possibilities are basically infinite. It imposes enough limits that the artist/musician can get his/her hand/head around it.

If in fact artists and/or architects have and do use these ratios in their work, it is probably for this reason more than any other. It’s almost like; in absence of any other confining system, why NOT use it? Yes, it may just be BS, but, then again, it might not!

James Wilson

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Ok.Now it is my turn to chime in as Editor of Art and Zen Today.

It is pretty well known that artist’s of all kind often impose systems on their practice that challenge them to go beyond their usual boundaries and possibly attain to highly creative results. I covered this topic in some detail in the post titled “Buddha as a Performance Artist?”I believe that it is possible to say that these artistic or spiritual systems may be said to foster “mindful creativity” as the term is used by Langer (see“On Becoming Mindful” )But, the “mindfully creative artist is able to use the restrictions imposed by whatever system they are using to foster new ways of imagining that inevitably go beyond that system.

Often the “systems” evoked for such purpose, whether artistic or spiritual, do not really “make sense” to others and if the system is touted by the user as some sort of “truth”, the chances are that someone will find way to poke holes in it.I think that this is along the lines of what James is saying in his comment above.

About a year ago I did some googling around the internet looking for artists who explicitly used the Golden Mean concept in their work.I found one painter who made a big deal of his dedication to the Golden mean ratios in constructing his painting.It was my impression that he was consciously trying to appeal to buyers who were into new agey “sacred geometry”.I found his work to be rather boring, predictable and not very creative.This, I think, speaks to the problem of any “systems” that we impose upon ourselves.As Jim seems to say in his comment, “systems” that impose restrictions can lead to greater creativity but not when followed slavishly (i.e. without mindfulness).

The quote from Phil that Charlie included in his reply is actually the last line of a quite long comment response to the article debunking the use of the Golden Mean.In the next segment,I have included all of Phils’ comment because it seems to me that he provides an example that reinforces my notion that genuine creativity is not found in the “truth” of the system but rather in how an artist uses this system (see insert below).

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Here I have copied the full comment made by Phil in his response to the article debunking the use of the Golden Mean.Charlie referred only to the last line of this comment, but the rest of it seems to provide an example of my main point.

I had a violin maker friend who made every instrument in accordance with golden section proportions. This included sound post positioning, the ratio of string length above and below the bridge, neck length, and the actual proportions of the body themselves.

He had a great deal of success and believed that the proportions were common in some historical violin making.

He also considered the setting of the violin to be very critical and that most violinists hadn’t a clue how to do it. One major difference between a Strad and a cheaper violin, he said, is that if you pay millions of dollars for an instrument, you just might be keen to set it up properly – sound post position, bridge positioning and shape etc

Whether or not Golden proportions help – he was convinced they did – the real magic was in the hands of the maker who completed the task and the final adjustments. I am sure that applies equally to everything from architecture to furniture. Sometimes I think that in attributing success to the golden section the creator of a masterpiece is perhaps a little too modest – or his critic a little too coldly scientific

Beauty like love is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Numbers can’t explain it.

Ellen Langer’s Book On Becoming an Artist consistently prompts the reader to question any existing artistic systems that they encounter as they embark on their creative journey.( seeELLEN LANGER ON THE “TALENT MYTH” ). Especially when we are beginners in any realm, we tend to look for some “system” that provides us guidelines for how to proceed.There is nothing wrong with this, but to the extent that we get “stuck” in the system, our creativity will suffer.I think that this alsoapplies to artists who have been creative enough to evolve their own “systems”, so to speak, of making art.When they are no longer mindful and begin automatically doing what has been successful for them in the past, there is no creative growth.The ability to push beyond even self- imposed boundaries is why artists like Picasso, Miles Davis and Bob Dylan, to name a few,are acknowledged as creative geniuses. And, so it goes, I would suggest, in the realm of the spirit.This brings me to Zen, and most forms of Buddhism generally.

Buddhist thought and practices inevitably entail boundaries or limitations.Furthermore, they often don’t make rational sense and I have heard myself and fellow Zen students refer to various teachings as “B.S.”The non-rational aspects of the teaching require that the student develop a degree of “faith”, to use the term that Jim seems to use derogatively.I would suggest that “faith” is only problematic when it stifles mindfulness.It is important to point out that Buddhist practice does not demand “blind faith”.Rather it requires a willingness (i.e. “necessary “faith”) to try out a certain viewpoint and set of practices to see whether or how they work in one’s own life.Buddha famously said something along the lines of the quote below (I don’t have “faith” that Buddha actually said everything attributed to him):

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

The Zen literature is especially contradictory and difficult to make sense of because it points out again and again, that Zen is simply a system, and that if you use the system wisely you end up transcending the system itself.This does not seem “rational”, at least to most beginners. It requires some degree of “faith” to continue with Buddhist practice until one can develop an understanding of how this works.Eventually, the student sees that there is no set view which is considered to be true and there is no end to discovering this; that is, as you discover new ways of seeing your life, you find that you can not rely (i.e. have “faith in” ) on that viewpoint forever.

To the extent that Buddhist practice leads to a constant re-visioning of one’s self and reality, it could be seen as the ultimate creative practice.Dale Wright makes this point in his recent book, The Six Perfections.Interestingly, Wright uses language that is consistent with Langer’s where “mindfulness” and “creativity” are equated. Wright’s book examines the various conventions and guidelines for attaining enlightened “Wisdom” as they have been passed down in Buddhist literature.However, Wright makes a point of reminding the reader over and over that blind conformity to these strictures is not what the journey is all about.“Wisdom” says Wright “is the ability to recognized what is and what is not an appropriate guide for dealing with situations skillfully.”(pg. 233).

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Most of you remember a post from the past that looked at the interesting ways that Sean Voisen found to immerse himself in the interstitial areas between art, technology and spirituality.(See ” Art, Zen and Technology: A Visit With Sean Voisen”) Today’s post is written by guest blogger James Wilson, who is playing in the same field and looking at similar overlapping areas.

Yes this is the same James Wilson whose appearance here on earth was largely orchestrated by me in an effort to manifest a life-long playmate. (See “Aliens From Inner Space”) This is the same guy who used to give me nightmares by shaking his crib all night long in his efforts to “escape” it’s material and confining nature.He’s been rattling his crib all his life and the post below provides a look at the wondrous possibilities “beyond the crib”.

By James Wilson

When I was still a student in music school at Boston University, I became aware of what I felt to be a subtle motion, or flow, in music that nobody was talking about. It was something slow, smooth, and not a direct component of the usual suspects: rhythm and harmony. At the same time, since I was a student of composition, I was studying the theories of Heinrich Schenker and others who suggested that the great Masters constructed their music with a conscious implementation of “tension and release” within their musical structures. In other words, their compositions would build to a climax, then release the built up tension, repeat again, and so on, taking us, the listener, on a virtual musical and emotional roller-coaster ride. This was also in alignment with what I felt and heard in music.

Dr. Norden

Also during this time, I was studying with a wonderful professor at Boston U., Dr. Hugo Norden, who was considered the foremost authority on J.S. Bach, counterpoint, and also on the topic of using the Golden Ratio in music, art, and architecture (“Form: the silent language”, is one of his books on the topic).

The “Golden Ratio”” (also often referred to as: extreme and mean ratio, medial section, divine proportion, divine section (Latin: sectio divina), golden proportion, golden cut, and golden number) is exactly that, a mathematical ratio, which is 1:1.618. In music, Dr. Norden theorized that it was used by the Masters (again, consciously), when laying out the form of the piece they were about to write. Basically, the idea is to lay out a piece of music as a function of time. In other words, if you plan for the piece to last, say, 5 minutes, then at minute 3:06 (1/1.618 = .618 * 5 minutes = 3.1, or 3:06 minutes) the composer would make some extraordinary event occur at 3:06 to divide the time line. This might be a jarring modulation, a loud chord, introduction of a second theme, etc.

This ratio was also used heavily in architecture, especially during Greek and Roman periods, and even way before the Greeks! Often this ratio was used as the ratio of width to height, i.e.

Authors such as Matila Ghyka, postulate that the Golden Ratio was used by well-known artists:

With these forces at work, I wanted to design and build a device that would:

Visually display the subtle “motion” I was experiencing when listening to music

Visually display the up-and-down/tension-release in music,

Incorporate the design principles of the Golden Ratio.

To do this, I incorporated another concept that has held fascination for me; the sine curve. The sine curve occurs often in pure and applied mathematics, as well as physics, engineering, signal processing and many other fields. Its most basic form as a function of time (t) is:

BTW: For those interested in religious symbols, the key idea here is that the sine curve is formed by the circle as a function of time. Circles commonly represent unity, wholeness, and infinity. Without beginning or end, without sides or corners, the circle is also associated with the number one. In other words, “perfection”, when brought into the flow of time = the sine curve!

Original "Adagio"

All this put together, resulted in my building a visual device that moves very slowly in front of the viewer’s eyes. I have named it “The Adagio”. A Video of the Adagio in action, along with a piece by Mozart, can be seen HERE.

The Adagio incorporates the sine curve, as well as Golden Ratios in the dimensions of the container, and in the angle of inclination of the sine curve itself. The slow moving line can be speed adjusted to the correct “flow” of the music, and the upward and downward movement of the lighted line follows the tension and release of the music being played while you watch.

As stated above, the original construction of Adagio was purely as a means to visualize motion-in-music, and to encapsulate the up/down emotional tension in music. It has done this beyond my expectations.

However, almost by accident, the Adagio was used in a biofeedback study at Nova University, in 1978. It was a very well conducted scientific experiment designed to differentiate between activities associated with our right brain hemisphere, and our left-brain hemisphere. It was discovered that by activating the right hemisphere of the experimental subjects, the Adagio has stress-reducing characteristics! A summary of the study can be seen HERE.

I finally have time to explore usage of my invention and am doing a “crowd funding” to build a commercial version of The Adagio. My goal is to:

Produce a production model that will be more aesthetically pleasing than the original prototype,

Produce a production model with greater durability suitable for consumer use, and

A production model constructed with readily available components.

Here’s a concept drawing of what I envision this new commercial version of the Adagio to look like:

(Click the image above to activate)

You can watch the video about Adagio’s history and potential uses here:

A couple of months ago my favorite Delta Airline headphones finally fell apart and I found myself at Fries Electronics looking at an long isle stocked full of possible replacements. I did not want to pay too much but I was keen on buying a pair that would seal off outside noise. Since there was no way to try the sets in the store, all I could do is peer though the clear plastic packaging and try to guess which ones might be highly insulated. Based on looks and a low price, I made my pick and hoped for the best.

When I took my new headphones to the fitness center the next day, I knew right away that I should have paid more. Not only did my new phones not muffle outside noise, they seemed to actually amplify it. The music pumped over the fitness center’s sound system, the clanking of barbells and other equipment, nearby conversations, as well as the shouts of encouragement from the spin class instructor all seemed to be funneled into my ear, along with the music on my MP3 player. For a week or so I compensated to some degree by turning up the music on my player to an uncomfortable volume. That usually allowed me to tune out the outside noises and focus on my music. Mostly however, I just complained silently to myself for not immediately returning the headphones and for being so cheap in the first place.

Most of the tunes I have on my MP3 player have been recorded from a internet radio station that plays non-traditional jazz. Many of the compositions I listen to involve blips and beeps on electronic instruments as well as both musical and spoken samples from other sources. One day I suddenly realized that sounds that I thought were part of the composition I was listening to on my MP3 player were actually sounds coming from the outside world of the fitness center. Surprisingly, it sounded pretty cool, even those sounds I had initially found to be annoying. After that, I was never certain which of the sounds I was hearing were part of the music and which were extraneous.

At one point, I remembered Jiyu Roshi telling me about an interview with John Cage on Public Radio’s “Fresh Air. Here is a excerpt from the interview taking off from where Cage and Terry Gross are talking about noises in New York City, burglar alarms specifically:

CAGE: …and they may last three or four hours. It’s quite, that’s quite a problem. I think

CAGE WITH SUZUKI ROSHI

that our, we almost have an instinct to be annoyed by a burglar alarm. But as I pay attention to them they’re curiously slightly varying.

GROSS: What if you’re paying attention to something else at the same time?

CAGE: Well, I think that one of our most accessible disciplines now is paying attention to more than one thing at a time. And if we can do that with equanimity, then I would suggest paying attention to three things at the same time. And you can practice that as a discipline. I think it’s more effective than sitting cross-legged. I mean to say cross-legged in relation to…

GROSS: In meditation.

CAGE: Yes. It opens the – I think the meaning of meditation is to open the doors of the ego from a concentration on itself to a flow with all of creation, wouldn’t you say? And if we can do this through the sense perceptions, through multiplying the things to which we’re able at one in the same time to pay attention, I think we accomplish much of the same thing. At least that’s my faith.

Cage at Piano

Cage, whose centennial was celebrated all over the world last year, is perhaps best known for his composition titled 4″ 33″. It consists of the pianist going to the piano, and not hitting any keys for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. (He used a stopwatch to time this.) In other words, the entire piece consists of silence from the stage but someone in the audience could, if they allowed themselves to, hear sounds from the street, sounds from the audience, and even internal sounds. What you hear when you listen to 4’33” is more a matter of chance than with any other piece of music — nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote.

The idea was to show the arbitrariness of the distinction between “musical” sounds and “other” types of sounds and show the richness of going beyond the usual boundaries of our attention. According to Cage: “If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.” ― John Cage

Upon remembering this interview, I realized that my “special” headphones were providing a similar experience for me and this realization allowed for an interesting shift in perspective on what I was hearing. Whereas before I judged the extraneous sounds as “noise” and internally fought against them, when I remembered Cage’s work, and acted “as if” I were Cage, I was able to relax and be more inclusive. I don’t know that allowing these external sounds into my “mix”, so to speak, necessarily made for “better music” but I sure found my listening experience to be much more engaging; in short I was listening with more attention than I usually did at the fitness center.

It is interesting that as I was working on this blog, Adam Baer, a music critic, published an article in the LA Times called “A Resonance on Dissonance” which is his account of an experiment to see whether he could come to like musical pieces that he had long disliked by listening to them regularly. His experiment had mixed results but Baer seems to endorse the idea that exposing ourselves to experiences that we usually avoid is a good thing. This is not exactly the same as what I’ve been talking about, but it seems to deal with the same general principle.

I’ve done some of this kind of experimenting myself with music genres that I generally don’t listen to and have been, on occasion, pleasantly surprised. More consistently I have tried to do something like this with visual art. Some time ago, whenever I would enter an art gallery or museum, I would scope out the pieces hanging on the walls and instead of gravitating towards those that appealed to me from a distance, I would first look (spending at least 2 minutes with each one) at those that did not.

As with Baer, I can’t say that mere exposure to such works brought about an instant reevaluation, but there were always a couple of pieces that I came to appreciate, which would not have happened had I proceeded on my initial instinct to ignore them. I think what happens in such experiments is that by taking some time really looking at a piece of art, (or listening to music) one comes to appreciate that the artist make choices in the creative process that made sense to him or her. Such realizations allowed me to somehow connect with the artist as a person and a fellow artist. This kind of insight has occurred rather dramatically, on more than one occasion ,after being exposed to a docent’s tour of art I didn’t particularly care for at the Oceanside Museum of Art. Being informed about details of the artist’s life and how he or she approached art somehow made me more accepting of and more appreciative of what they had produced.

Is the intent of such “experiments” to come to love all art and music? On this, I think I agree with Baer, who, although finding some value in exposing himself to unfavored music, goes on to say the following: Obviously, no one, regardless of exposure, training or even a role as a public music appreciator, need to like anything, and that’s a sentiment that should be embraced more in the still-rigid concert hall. Hate Mahler’s seventh symphony? Walk out like you would at the Viper Room. Find Liszt unbearable? Shout or fight about it. We’re allowed to seize up to more than the thorny stuff, and a lot of these composers never suffered a fool or composer they couldn’t stomach. Let’s be human, real about the subject, just like the people who wrote the tunes”

The universe, it seems, has good taste. Here is a painting it did. Or rather, here is a painting John Cage allowed to happen, letting the I-Ching direct his brushstrokes if true to form.

So, if learning to like everything isn’t the point of such experiments, what is? I’d suggest that they can help us to become more mindful in the sense of the term used by Ellen Langer, an experimental social psychologist who has devoted her career to its study. To explore Langer’s ideas, I now turn to her latest book “On Becoming An Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity”, (purchased for $0.04 plus shipping) which will be the basis for several blog posts in the future.

According to Langer: Mindfulness is simply the process of noticing new things. It is seeing the similarities in things thought different and the differences in things taken to be similar” (p. 16). She goes on to say: “the more mindful we are, the more choices we have and the less reactive we become. We don’t realize when we are mindless. We’re not there to notice. If, however we allowed ourselves to become fully engaged in some new activity, over time, we could more easily compare how we feel when we are mindfully engaged with how we feel at other times. The more experience we have with being mindfully creative, the sooner we will recognize when we are simply acting out a script and the sooner we can return to being centered. When we are mindfully engaged, we essentially are writing our own script and are free to choose to make changes at any point. When we are mindfully creative, we are being authentic.” (p. 10-20)

What Langer calls “mindfulness” seems to be the same thing as being “awake/present/alive” as I have used this term (see THE ARTIST IS PRESENT) and so the importance of exposing oneself to new experiences is essentially a way of becoming engaged and pulling oneself out of the habit of relying on self-imposed and conditioned expectations and rules. Expectations and rules that are no long relevant or useful in our lives can be responsible for suffering in Buddhist sense of the term.

In “TO KNOW FLOW OR NO FLOW?” we saw that some degree of challenge or difficulty is necessary in order to have a flow experience. So called flow personalities are likely to be consistently engaging in the kinds of personal experiments that I have been talking about here, not just in relating to art but in all aspects of life.

In my next post I’ll delve deeper into Langer’s book. In the meantime, I am talking with several venture capitalists about the development of my “Mindfulness HeadPhones” into a commercial product.. I can’t share the details with you yet, but you can be sure that they will be really, really cheap.

This post was inspired by and builds upon comments from Sean and Jiyu Roshi on my last post (“YEAH MAN!”: IMPROVISATION IN JAZZ, COMEDY AND ZEN”). In posts leading up to that one I had explored the idea that improvised behavior, that is spontaneous responses in the present moment, involves “forgetting” or “ignoring” the “inner voice” that reflects the imagined reactions of others. The idea behind these posts was that such thoughts prevent one from acting spontaneously in response to whatever is happening in the present moment. In jazz, comedic improv or the various arts (such as archery) associated with Zen, practice is often described as helping one to learn to act without first consulting the “rational mind”, “the inner voice”, the “ego mind”, the “left-brain” or whatever you want to call it. In “Yeah Man”, I suggested that this can be faciliated by practicing “Yes” in situations where you usually say “no”.

The more I think about what I just summarized in the paragraph above, the more I believe that while it is correct metaphorically, it probably not a totally accurate description of how things work.. I think a better way to put it is to say that practice helps develop an integrative communication between left and right brain processes that allows the practioner to respond to whatever is happening in the moment more quickly. This is different from the idea that there is no rational or left brain processes at all going on during improvisation, which is implied in my earlier posts. It also differs from the prevailing view amongst both Zen and non-Zen writers, that improvisation entails no thinking whatsoever. My alternative view is that the practioner (music, Improv, Zen or whatever) has learned to “reframe/refocus” and learns to rapidly consider any thoughts that may be called forth by the current situation and either act on those or drop them. This is done so quickly that it appears, to both the performer and observer, that choices are instantaneous, entailing no thinking at all. (See “CREATIVE REFRAMING” IN ART AND ZEN” AND “CREATIVE RE-FOCUSING“.) It entails developing an expanded awareness or what Lester Fehmi calles “opened-focus” where both right and left-brain processes work together. (see HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY OPENED-FOCUSED EXPERIENCE WHILE READING THIS POST.)

Being fully awake and present (as during improvisation) doesn’t mean that there is no thinking, even though it may seem like that to observers or the performer himself or herself. As my previous coverage of both jazz and comedic improvisation indicates, a key component of successful improvisation is being aware of what is going on amongst the other performers. It does not mean being totally devoid of any thoughts that could possibly be seen as putting a damper on one’s creative expressiveness. Rather it means being able to ignore or act upon these thoughts, (very quickly) depending on the nature of the situation. It means being able to find a balance between “letting go” and being attuned to the surroundings. This attunement is what may differentiate creative expressiveness from craziness (See.”.Sun Ra, The Alien: The Thin Line Between, Genius, Spirituality and Crazy”.)

A key reason for my introducing terms like “creative reframing” and “refocusing” in earlier posts was that they allow for seeing how we can learn, though practice, to incorporate both left and right brain processes; being able to decide almost instantaneously which of the many choices that arise moment by moment should be acted upon This includes “information” that is best characterized as “a felt sense”, “intuition” or “internal wisdom”. In my last post “Yeah Man: Improvisation in Jazz, Comedy and Zen“, I suggested that improvisation in music, theater or daily life is facilitated by adopting an attitude of saying “yes” to whatever is happening in the moment. By saying “yes” to or not resisting whatever is going on because it does not fit some idealized notion of what you think should be happening, you not only allow for personal flow, but facilitate flow in others as well. When this happens it often seems as if there is no thinking, decision-making or choices involved. In Zen and other literature this is even referred to as “choiceless awareness”.

What I want to do now is provide an argument that even in highly improvised actions, choices are being made. To help with this I want use a comment sent in by Sean in response to “Yeah Man: Improvisation in Jazz, Comedy and Zen”. So let’s start with Sean’s remark and then I will riff on this for a while. You can read the original post by clicking here.

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On Feb. 20th, Sean wrote:

“After I my divorce and move to San Francisco, for the first year I made it a personal rule that I had to say “yes” to all social invitations and calls to adventure. Oftentimes, it’s far easier to hole up and stay home, but even when I was tired or “not feeling it” I still said yes. This practice paid with substantial dividends. It’s the same with zazen. Sometimes you just don’t feel like sitting on the cushion, but you do it anyway. You say “yes, and …,” and then you sit down. It pays dividends.

It’s strange the interplay of practice and improvisation, which I think goes back to your previous post. Sometimes you have to force yourself to practice, which in turn leads to a kind of better unforced spontaneity. So I love this idea of “yes, and …” We can just say “yes, and …” to whatever arises, even not wanting to sit. And then do it anyway.”

Sean

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Now I’m going to take some liberties with Sean’s remarks and go beyond what he actually says in order to make some points about the nature of practice and improvisation. What I say may or may not exactly characterize Sean’s specific process, but I think it reflects a more general process.

When we say “yes” to one thing we are also saying “no” to another and this is what makes the practice of “yes” a powerful practice. Sean doesn’t actually say it. but I would imagine that in the past he had rather quickly turned down the kinds of invitations that he is now saying “yes” to. I’m guessing that the response “I’m too tired” or “Maybe some other time” had become rather automatic in the face of such invitations. For whatever reason, it is likely that he came to realize a some point that these automatic responses were perhaps keeping him from living a more fulfilling life and so he decided to practice his version of “just say yes”. Now based on personal experience, I am also guessing that for a while, perhaps a long time, the old reactions of “no” came up automatically whenever an invitation was directed his way. And, I would imagine that part of what went on in Sean’s thinking process entailed “overriding” (saying “no” to ) these automatic thoughts as to why the invitation should be refused, by remembering that he has decided to practice this attitude of “yes”.

It is significant that Sean links his practice of embracing invitations with his practice of Zazen. This is because the essence of Zazen is watching one’s thoughts as they arise and deciding to not get caught up in them. I might be tempted to say that Zazen entails “saying” no to thoughts but that phrase can be confusing. Since thoughts will always arise, it is not the thoughts that are seen as problematic from a Zen perspective. And, I know from experience that trying not to think while practicing Zazen is futile and leads to internal tensions. So the skill that is developed during Zazen is being able to objectively look at these thoughts and making a decision as to whether to allow yourself to float away from the present moment along with these thoughts or to bring yourself back into being fully present. The fact is that there are times when thinking is necessary and you always have the choice. I’m pretty sure that Sean would say “no” to an offer to go out and snort cocaine and then shoot people on the street.

By remembering (becoming mindful) again and again in daily Zazen, one developes the “muscles”, so to speak, to remember and wake up in everyday circumstances, such as those described by Sean, where important choices must be made very rapidly.

Let’s imagine that one day after a hard day at the office a co-worker asks Sean to go out on the town. In the split second that human thinking requires, Sean may have the thought “oh I’m too tired”, followed by “Oh, but what about my practice of yes?”, followed by ” No I really am too tired and need to sleep”. The point is that Sean has a choice and it is a richer choice than before he began his “practice of yes”. Presumably he is not only able to say “no” to his old habitual thoughts that were not rewarding but could also say “no” to his practice of “yes” and consider how he is actually feeling before deciding on a course of actions. In the movie “Yes Man” the character played by Jim Carrey begins to expand and enrich his life by saying “yes” to circumstances and opportunities that he previously would have missed. But, a major lesson of the story is that he also learns than there some situations where saying “no” is a wiser choice than automatic “yeses”. By practicing “yes” the character has expanded his choices and learned how to make better decisions, including saying “no” to “yes”. Any practice necessarily expands awareness and as practice continues, decision-making processes becomes easier and quicker one until it reaches a point where it becomes improvisational flow.

In his comments on the previous post, Jiyu Roshi wrote that our

“Zen practice, …….is centered on becoming more aware of all of our choices and the reasons behind them, our life is really a dance of moving between, and along with, yes and no responses. My point here is that it’s important to see as much of the whole picture as possible and understand all sides to an ultimate “yes or no” decision.”

Now you may wonder why I am making such a big deal about seeing improvisation as involving choices and seeing left-brain processes as being part of the decision-making process. It may seem that I have spent a lot of your time writing about a minor shift in how we understand improvisation, but I think that there are some real problems with seeing improvisation as entailing no thought and no choice, especially for the Zen practioner. Since this piece has already violated the lenth guidelines for bloggers, I have chosen to follow up with this in my next post. But, let me leave you with a hint of where I plan to go next and something to think about in the meantime.

In his interview with Oprah, Lance Armstrong offered as an explanation for his cheating

IT'S NOT MY FAULT. I'M INBRED.

and the massive suffering it caused others by saying: “It was easy. It just flowed. I was in a zone, like athletes get”. This sense of flow is what we all would like to experience but what happens when it is experienced and understood as “I was not responsible for my choices”?

In my last post “Are You A Flow Addict?”, I suggested that most of us become attached to those experiences of being “present-awake-alive”- experiences that Dr.Mihaly Csikszentimaihalyi (Dr. C.) has called “flow experiences”. I received a reply from Jiyu Roshi regarding my article saying: No, “flow” is not addictive. And you cannot become a “flow” addict. “Flow” is living in a place of complete freedom. “I must make clear the “flow” I am talking about is the life of the awakened person. This comment may seem to contradict the main point of the original post, but I believe it is really saying what I said in a slightly different way.

This blog is a work in process and I am constantly discovering for myself what my goals are in writing it. It became clear a couple of months back that one thing I was doing was trying to see whether or not I could stretch the term “creativity” to apply to both artistic and spiritual practices. As I thought about Roshi’s comments to my last post, it also occurred to me that I am exploring alternative ways of talking about the purpose and practice of Zen. So I am thankfull to him for raising my awareness about this.

Since Zen comes from a non-Western tradition, I personally find that the language used in the Zen literature often obfuscates rather than clarifies; this is confounded by that fact that many Zen writers do this purposely. In Zen there are frequent references to the “awakened”, “enlightened” or “liberated person”, as Roshi has done in his reply. Western Zen scholars such as Dale Wright and Peter Hershock suggest that these terms conjure up, for many Western readers, images of persons possessing a special, often “supernatural” state that is simultaneously not comprehensible, not personally attainable and a magical way of being that will deliver one, once and for all, from all of one’s problems.

Unfortunately such a view can lead to conditions which actually are an impediment to the “life flow” that Roshi says is enjoyed by such persons. To the extent that one fosters a dream of some unattainable, wonderful way of being, that person will find difficulty in being present-awake-alive, moment by moment in his or her life. It is my assumption that this is why many Zen writers have said that one should not practice Zen in order to attain enlightenment.

I’m not sure whether my exploration of alternative “languages” will help Westerners to better understand Zen or not. But, I can only find out by trying it out and that is the purpose of this Blog. Needless to say, I will be dependent upon your responses to help me evaluate this endeavor.

When I think of “flow” I picture myself floating down a river on a raft. Although I can paddle and steer the raft to some degree, the speed and direction of the raft are largely determined by the flow of the water in the river. Sometimes the raft may move at a speed I find fun; at other times it may be too fast or too slow. When it is just right, I have fun; I have a “flow experience”. I’m am present-awake-alive. When it is too fast or slow, I am not in the moment because I want my experience to be other than what it is. To the extent that I become attached to a particular kind of rafting experience; that is, one where I am fully present, I suffer when that is not happening. This is the point I was trying to make in the previous post using Dr. C’s theory.

Now regardless of how much I may struggle to speed up or slow down the raft, it keeps on moving according to the flow of the river. No matter how much I want to repeat a particular fun experience (maybe an exhilarating dive through some rapids) that I had in the past, the flow of the river, the raft and my life continues. As long as I’m on the raft I am flowing, whether or not I like what is happening and whether or not I am “present-awake-alive” to what is happening. So it is possible to say that as long as I am alive, my life is naturally in a state of flow; that is I am always flowing. This seems to be the way that flow is used in the saying that I quoted in “To Know Flow or No Flow” and is repeated below. For me the ghist of Lao Tzu’s saying is that if our life is naturally a flow, we might as well be fully present as it is happening.

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Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. Lao Tzu

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Things flow naturally and we can avoid suffering by “going with the flow”. Roshi seems to have this idea of flow in mind when he says that flow is not addictive. In his comments, Roshi indicates that he is using a slightly different definition of “flow” than Dr. C’s when he says:

“I must make clear the “flow” I am talking about is the life of the awakened person. True freedom doesn’t “feel” good or bad. True freedom is that place where you are able to adjust instantly to whatever arises and you no longer worry about making the right or wrong decision.”

What Roshi refers to as the “awakened person” is presumably someone who is “present-awake-alive” almost all the time. Such individuals can go with the flow of their particular life, regardless of where it takes him or her. This was my point in the article when I said that the “autotelic personality” was better able to flow in a variety of situations, regardless of whether or not they defined them as “fun”. My point was that such a person would not be addicted to particular experiences in their lives. So I was trying, using somewhat different language, to make the same point as Roshi: that is, that “awakened persons” are not addicted to flow. The problem for those of us who are not “awakened” is that whenever we separate out some aspect of the flow of our life as being an experience we want to repeat or avoid, we are struggling against the natural flow of our lives.

When most people have a certain kind of experience, good or bad, it is always relative to other experiences they have had or may be dreaming of. To have an experience, requires “getting into one’s head”, so to speak: getting involved in making comparisons with other “experiences” and making plans to try to either repeat or avoid similar experiences in the future. To the extent that one’s self becomes the focus of attention, one becomes separate from that flow of life as it is happening right here now. When an experience becomes something to attain or avoid, one is ignoring the fact that change is the essence of life. As Roshi says “Our mistake is in believing the self is permanent and we become attached (and sometimes addicted) to things we think will make the self happy, or fulfilled, so we keep trying one thing after another to satisfy this self.”

Having a self or being a self entails trying to control our experiences in ways that corresponds to what we think we are or should be (i.e how our life should be). This thwarts the natural flow that is our life as it is unfolding moment by moment. “Letting go of the self” or “becoming One with everthing” or “becoming an awakened person”are terms that often are used in Zen literature to refer to allowing one’s life to flow without resisting it. Many people find these terms to be either unfathomable or frightening, and this is one reason that I wanted to write about all of this using terms such as “flow experience” “being present”. We have all had such experiences, it may be easier for us to imagine what it would be like to be a part of this natural flow of life, that is, to use Roshi’s terms, to be an “awakened person”. I wanted to use Dr. C’s term “autotelic personality” because it seems much less intimidating than “awakened person” and I plan to use elements of his theory to show how it relates to the idea of creativity, as it has been used in prior posts.

On my raft, I may paddle faster to avoid polluted waters or steer to avoid oncoming rocks; being in the flow of the river doesn’t mean not responding to what is happening moment by moment. But, if I am truly responding to each present moment as it unfolds I am not suffering because things are not going the way I want them to. Suffering, in this sense, can be eliminated by learning to be present-awake-alive in each moment and all situations and practicing Zen is one way this learning can take place.

I’ll end by quoting the last few lines of Jiyu Roshi’s comments:

If you are serious about understanding and living a flowing, free life you will need to be willing to do the creative work/play Manoj (Steve) discusses.

The focus of this blogsite is “creativity” and little has been said about this in the past few blogs. Coming up I will look at the “creative work/play” process involved in overcoming our separation from our natural life flow.

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In the last post “Know Flow or No Flow?”, I looked at the characteristics of what is called the “flow experience” and equated it with being fully “present-alive-awake”. Both in the arts and in various spiritual traditions, “being fully present” is held out as a desirable goal. As I said in that post, we all know what it is like to flow and be in the present moment. However, most of us can be in the present moment only when we are in certain situations, carrying out specific activities. Since we have all had some experiences of being present-alive-awake, we all have the capacity to be this way more often and in a broader range of situations in our lives. Whether we are talking about the conventional arts or the “spiritual arts”, I believe this is a process of increasing one’s “creativity”. This and several future posts will look at this creative process.

Most people seek out those activities or situations where they flow and avoid those where they don’t. So a person who flows while skiing, for example, may become a “skier” meaning that he or she will try to ski as much as possible. There is nothing inherently wrong with this but it can lead an unbalanced life organized around one’s flow activities.

A person who can only be present while, skiing, is likely to become a “ski fanatic” and will spend enormous time and energy trying to repeat the feeling of past skiing-flow experiences. As they gets more proficient , they will need to find more and more challenging slopes to avoid boredom and experience flow. Such a skiing fanatic is likely to be miserable when he or she is not skiing and spend much of their time dreaming about past skiing experiences as well as fantasizing about future experiences. This means, that when they are not skiing they are no where close to being “in the moment”.

More importantly, they are not likely to develop other skills or interests that can provide the “fun” found in skiing, which makes them all the more “addicted” to skiing. In other words, they suffer when they are not skiing and this fuels even greater need to ski. In addition, they are likely to make life miserable for those around them (e.g.. the “ski widow”).

thus are not dependent on any single one to experience flow. But, I do not think that such individuals are always “high” or “having fun” as the literature on flow might suggest. In the last post I found it useful to link the concept of “flow” to the concept of “being present-alive-awake”, but we need to be careful of taking this similarity too far.

Most have us are able to be fully present when we are in situations where we are having fun. But, I believe that it is also possible to be present in situations which are not characterized as being “fun”. We can do this, but usually we can we just don’t want to. There is plenty of evidence, for instance, that people can become fully present while experiencing physical pain or danger and become addicted. The “addiction” that some military people develop to combat and sadomasochistic relationships are a couple of extreme examples that come to mind. However, generally, in situations which we define as “not fun”, we are absorbed in our thoughts; thoughts of how to get out of that situation and thoughts about what we would rather be doing etc. In other words we are anything but “present”.

Marina Abramovic is not having "fun" in her piece "The Artist is Present".

But, it is not just these negative extremes that are likely to dampen our “presence”. Most of us, most of the time, are somewhere in-between having fun and non-fun and find these times to be anything but flow-inducing. I believe that this is where what Dr. C. calls the “autotelic personality” is able to be more present more often than the general population. They have the creative skills to define whatever situations they find themselves in ways that allow them to be “present-alive-awake”.

Creativity is basically the ability to look at things in a new way. This, I believe is what distinguishes what Dr. C. calls “autotelic personalities” from others. They have the capacity to redefine or reframe situations they face in ways that provide for a greater balance between the “perceived demands” and their “resources or skills” (see Know Flow or No Flow?).

The term “autotelic” refers to the process of doing something for it’s own sake, that is doing something because it is “intrinsically” rewarding rather than “extrinsically” rewarding. This suggests that the “autotelic personality” then is capable of being fully present in situations that they, according to their definition, (importantly, not others definitions) are able to find rewarding. This implies that such individuals are capable of casting off conventional understandings of situations and provide a personalized meaning of what is demanded and what is required to be “successful”. To me this is the essence of “creativity”.

The outcome may be a great piece of art or a solution to a societal problem but for the person in question the reward is being “present-alive-awake”. And, as I suggested in my post called “Performer-Audience Communication”, others can be positively affected by such creativity because it reminds them that they too can be “present-alive-awake”.

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